Raw talent cooks right under local noses at Strangers

It’s crazy to think that six months ago Victor Bosc was playing his guitar and singing his songs in front of a grocery store in El Centro.

It’s even crazier to think that he has begun to hook up with national touring acts as an opener, warming up eclectic punk and garage shows and gaining quite the YouTube following with his high-energy acoustic sets after a fateful meeting between the curb and the shopping carts.

“I was with my daughter, Mykah, at Food 4 Less and I see him playing outside, and I was tripping out that it was really good music and stuff that I enjoy,” said Ernie Quintero, owner of Strangers bar in El Centro and all-around punk rock Renaissance man.

“I dropped a tip in his guitar case and asked, ‘Hey man, want to play my bar?’”

It’s the classic story of original musicians helping other original musicians, a small but supportive community in the Imperial Valley where music venues catering to original punk rock have historically been in short supply … until Ernie came home, open and shut his skate shop, Cheap Tricks, and began life anew as the traffic cop at the intersection of national touring bands and local artists looking for some exposure.

Ernie’s story is a long one, but suffice it to say, his time as a tour manager for garage icons Black Lips and keyboardist for seminal punkers The Spits introduced him to countless musicians that have played his bar, and he frequently pays it forward by introducing local songwriters to artists outside the Valley.

Enter Bosc and a budding career as a professional musician beyond the confines of his native Mexicali/Holtville/El Centro.

Born Victor Mendoza, he’s a young man from the old tradition of busking, or playing on the street for loose change and the occasional buck, if he’s lucky.

In fact, the stage name he goes by — Victor Bosc — is his own Latino reworking of the word “busk.” Aha.

For a guy like Bosc, Strangers was the break he needed, putting his music out there and giving him the opportunity to write and record songs that will be heard and appreciated outside the orbit of the cold-cut counter and the produce aisle.

“It’s like the only place to play, and I like that,” Bosc said of Strangers. “Everyone really goes for the music; they listen to everything you put into the music.”

Twenty-seven year-old Daniel Hernandez, a native of Holtville, feels the same way about Strangers. Although he’s been a musician for many years, Strangers gave him a bigger stage and better connections to move his band Sailing Stones’ music forward.

“It’s really cool that Ernie offers (a place for locals to perform) and allows this place to flourish,” Hernandez said. “A place doesn’t happen without people, and he plays really great music with really great people.”

A unique document of the local talent that has performed at Strangers can be found on SoundCloud, the online social media and music recording site.

When Quintero saw his skateboard shop close for the last time, he and local musicians helped pay the rent on an adjacent space to the bar and opened Cheap Tracks, a recording/rehearsal studio that recently closed.

Fortunately, it didn’t close before local musicians like Hernandez, Cole Taylor, Exning Smith, the New Rivers and others recorded their original songs under a Cheap Tracks SoundCloud collection that stands as testament to what has grown organically from the bar.

Meanwhile, Bosc said he’s ready to break out of the Valley and do more than the occasional opening gig. “That’s what I’m trying to do, but I’m trying to finish my CD first,” he said.

What’s impressive about this story is, that through the connections already made, the shows already played and a bar owner with endless connections, Bosc is not just blowing smoke, he’s ready to blow minds.

Cheap Tracks SoundCloud page: https://soundcloud.com/cheaptracks-ec

This column first appeared in the Imperial Valley Press, Feb. 27, 2015.

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